


Take Up Your Cross and Follow Me

by shadesfalcon



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Instability, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Recovery, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-08 00:24:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6831448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadesfalcon/pseuds/shadesfalcon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes shows up on Steve’s doorstep and tells him they’re running away together. It’s not as romantic as it sounds. Just a declaration. Bucky has been following Steve for years, so now it's Steve's turn to shut up and do as he's told. Even if Bucky hasn't exactly decided where they're going.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take Up Your Cross and Follow Me

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [Arej](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Arej/pseuds/Arej) for excellent editing and discussions, especially on a last minute basis. <3
> 
> And LOOK! [kojiak](http://kojiak.tumblr.com/) made [art for it](http://kojiak.tumblr.com/post/144850831709/a-lil-doodle-inspired-by-polyamoryavengers-s)!

 

 

 

 

 

Linguistically speaking, “follow me” was the simplest order given by Christ, and yet, for his disciples, there was no more difficult task appointed to them. Given this, perhaps SGT James Barnes should have better anticipated the danger in his reckless declaration.

“That little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight, I'm following him.”

If he doesn’t understand that danger in 1945 when his grip slips off the hurtling train, he understands it in 2014 when he stares his own picture down in the Smithsonian. He reaches out toward the plaque stuck to the wall because he can’t help but touch his own name etched there. The metal rasps against the edge of the plastic, and he jerks his hand back.

Thirty-seven minutes later he’s standing in front of Steve. Captain America. Steven Grant Rogers. Good boy. Stevie. Hero. Steve gets so many names, but all of them mean the same thing. James has a lot of names too, but he doesn’t have the same privilege of cohesion.

“Holy fucking shit,” Steve breathes, when he opens his door and practically runs into James.

Before Steve can say anything else, James puts up his hand, the metal one again, with the fingers splayed out in what he’s pretty sure is a “wait” gesture.

“I followed you,” he rasps. He hadn’t realized till now that he hasn’t spoken in nearly a week. He swallows hard and continues, “I followed you wherever you wanted to go. For years. So now it’s your turn to follow me.”

“Where are we going?” Steve says. He’s still dressed for running, and it is, James thinks, painfully comme il faut.

“Don’t forget your jacket,” James says, and then follows it up with, “And don’t ask questions.”

In the blink of an eye, they’re gone. One moment, the world is rising chaos and churning anger, and the next it’s an absence of sound.

It’s fine. The world never knew what to do with Captain America anyway.

 

They’re out of the city in a “borrowed” car and driving north at an alarming speed - James at the wheel - when Steve gets a worried text from Sam. James reaches across the center console and takes the phone right out of Steve’s hands. He rolls down Steve’s window, and chucks it outside to shatter against the metal rail lining the highway next to them.

“No,” James says.

“Okay,” Steve answers. He’s settling back into the seat, unconcerned. He isn’t wearing a seatbelt, and while that hurts James somewhere, he can’t figure out why. The Steve he’s looking at could go through a windshield and walk away from it.

So, here’s the plan. Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes were apparently inseparable since childhood, and if James really does want to make this work, then that’s the end goal. He has to get to that point. Inseparability. Which is complicated by the fact that spending extended periods of time with Steve Rogers will make it difficult to hide how not-Bucky-Barnes he has become. But it’s not hopeless. It’s not. Even though Steve Rogers probably won’t want these leftovers if he  learns that Bucky is barely there.

Counterproductive thought process. Do not follow.

So, here’s the plan. He just has to become Bucky Barnes again. There are parts of him still hanging around, James thinks. They used to surface at the most inopportune moments, so now he just has to fetch them out again. Listen to them. Repeat them. And when he can’t hear them, he’ll just have to try and guess what they’d say. What they’d say? No, what he’d say? What Bucky would say or what James would say or what the asset would say, because that’s still here sometimes, too fuck everything fuck fuck fuck f—

Counterproductive thought process. Do not follow.

So, here’s the plan. He’s just going to think very carefully about everything he says and does. No more instinct or reflex. Just calm judgment. Placing all the words and actions in the separate boxes. And if the Winter Soldier shows up again…if he tries to hurt Steve again…if he never - never never never fuck never. Just never, and he can’t. He can’t do this. He can’t.

He pulls over to the side of the road with a sharp twist of the wheel and Steve, who has been silently staring out the window, half-falls over the center console at the change in momentum.

“Bucky?” he asks.

“I need you to drive now,” James snaps, and flings open the door of the car. He marches around, pointedly choosing the same direction as Steve so they don’t have to walk past each other, which is stupid stupid stupid because they’re just going to get right back in the same car again. They’re just going to sit right back down next to each other.

Bucky pauses outside the passenger door. They’re north of New York City, closer to Albany than anywhere else really. It’s early morning still, and the highway is wet with dew. It’s slick beneath his feet. There’s morning fog hanging in the rolling landscape of pine trees, and he can feel the stillness of the world when he pauses outside the passenger side door. There’s no breeze.

So, here’s the plan. Be better.

He jerks the car door open with the same anger with which he’d opened the driver’s side. He’s curling his left arm into his body so he doesn’t forget and reach out and wrench. He climbs into the passenger seat, and does not buckle his seat belt.

“Where are we going?” Steve asks carefully.

James thinks about it really hard, but nothing comes to mind. It’s difficult for him to find desire in his body and he already spent all of it on deciding to want Steve again. So there’s nothing left. It’s just empty why-give-a-fuck rolling in the pit of his stomach and since when is it so hard to want? He used to want all the time. Mostly he’d wanted “stop” and “no” and “don’t” but that was still wanting, right?

He might throw up. He leans over his knees and gags once, and he can see Steve’s hand jerk like he wants to touch his friend’s back, but Bucky isn’t here isn’t here isn’t here, hasn’t been here for years it’s too late. This is nothing but stupid, and he can’t do this. He thinks about putting his hand on the car door handle, ready to step back out onto the highway. He’s confident that, if he utilizes the element of surprise, he can get enough of a head start in the woods that Steve won’t catch him. Because this is stupid, and he’s failing, and he needs to go.

He sits up and touches the handle.

“Bucky,” Steve says softly. God, so softly. The asset does not deserve words that soft, and James doesn’t think he does either, but it doesn’t matter because this body was conditioned to concede to that tone years before it was conditioned to kill and main and ruin. He lets his subconscious take over to answer the unanswered bits of the question hanging in the air.

“I wanna see what I missed, you stupid punk.” The accent of the words in his mouth is different than it was a moment ago. “Show me the United States. That’s the plan.”

“That is the best goddamn plan you’ve ever had,” Steve says. And he’s smiling. Bucky did that - put a smile on his face - and that’s a miracle right there.

“Anywhere you want to see first?” Steve asks.

“Someplace neat. But maybe, could we start with someplace quiet?” And James doesn’t know if that last bit was still Bucky or if it was James himself, but Steve nods happily either way, so it doesn’t really matter.

 

The miles move by a lot more quickly than he feels like they should. Maybe it’s just that sitting in the passenger seat and watching the landscape is different than balancing on a metal bench in a windowless van, surrounded by people who fear you hate you don’t even remember you’re there anymore.

He glances down at where Steve’s hand rests on the center console, as he drives with one hand.

Physical touch is supposedly a big deal right? That’s a fact he’s put together about human bodies from the way he involuntarily would lean into the hands that had just been hurting him. So he reaches across his own body to touch Steve’s hand with his flesh and blood one. At the contact, Steve turns his hand so it’s palm up, and James takes it as an indication that that was a good thing to do. He slides his fingers all the way down to Steve’s wrist where he pauses to tap lightly on the veins.

“That feels nice,” Steve says. He’s still looking forward out the windshield, but James doesn’t need anything more than those nonchalant words. He keeps tapping, keeping up a pattern. 3, 1, 3, 2, 3, 1, 3, 2, over and over and over. He speeds it up and slows it down, letting the numbness of perfection keep his mind off anything else.

“Is your fine motor control that good with the other hand?” Steve asks, and James’ fingers twitch.

“Yeah,” he answers roughly, but makes no move to demonstrate. Instead he brushes his fingers over the thin skin of Steve’s wrist, petting it once, and then pulls himself back upright in the seat.

“Did I say something wrong?” Steve asks, and James sighs internally because now he has to figure out how he feels about that statement. It hadn’t been spoken with pity or worry, but rather a calm inquiry, so Steve probably just wants to know. But there’s also the possibility that he’s hiding his concern behind a facade of indifference.

Then again, does it even fucking matter?

“No,” James says, and goes back to staring out the window.

 

They end up stopping in a tiny little town called Pottersville, about an hour outside of Albany. It’s the ice cream that stops them. There’s a huge yellow sign that’s somehow both worn and gaudy, and it makes James turn in his seat to get another glance at it as they drive by. He’s not sure why that particular sign “NATURAL STONE BRIDGES AND CAVES” makes him turn, but that’s all it takes for Steve to slam on the brakes and pull an almost-U-turn to get them into the tiny parking lot.

“I just looked at it,” James explains, slightly anxious at the sudden and violent reaction. He’s got one hand on the dash and the other on this knife hidden under his jeans at his ankle. “You didn’t have to stop. I just meant…I just…I just looked. I’m sorry. It wasn’t a thing.” He wonders if he’ll be punished for moving.

But no…wait. That’s another life.

“It got my attention, too,” Steve says with a shrug. He pops his door open, but doesn’t get out yet. “Big yellow sign. Caving advertisement, but it’s pointed at an ice cream walk up. Weird.” Then he gets out of the car, and James isn’t the slightest bit fooled. If he hadn’t moved to look at the sign again, Steve wouldn’t have given this place a second glance. Still, they’re here now, and fighting it would spend more energy than just going with it. He gets out of the car.

The day has cleared up a lot from the damp mountain fog of the morning. The sun is up now, and it’s close enough to summer that it feels warm. Steve’s still under-dressed for the weather, though. God, he’s still in his running outfit, plastic sweatpants and a T-shirt that is too tight, like what the fuck is the tactical purpose of that get up? The pants are loud when he walks. _Swish swish swish_.

James doesn’t have anything else for him to wear. He’s going to get fucking pneumonia, and then Bucky is going to have to find a way to scrape together enough money that Mr. Henderson will call it “close enough” and give him the antibiotics he needs. And then, of course, all the—

Shit. Wrong life again. Steve runs at 104 degrees these days. He’s fine. No pneumonia.

“What kind of ice cream do you want?” Steve asks, and James chokes on a laugh. He’s not even sure his body can handle that kind of sugar after all the prepackaged MREs and liquid protein he’s been surviving on for years.

“I just eat what I’m given,” he says. Then, sidetracked by his own thoughts, he adds, “What year is it, exactly, anyway?”

Steve’s hand twitches. It’s a slight tightening of the fingers and James sidesteps out of range, because that’s the movement of a hand that wants to make a fist and do real damage.

“It’s 2014,” Steve says calmly. He’s very focused on the makeshift menu in front of him. “May 24th. Saturday. Let’s just go with something simple.”

He orders vanilla cones with chocolate sprinkles and pays with cash. James makes a note to pickpocket a few people before they go. There’s a older couple sitting at one of the picnic tables. They’ve probably got some cash. He should have picked some up before they left NYC. He’s got maybe $60 on him, and they’re going to have to get Steve some real clothes. James looks like a hobo, but Steve looks like an idiot.

When they get their order, the vanilla ice cream doesn’t turn out to be “with chocolate sprinkles” so much as “completely fucking covered in them” and James eyes it, unappreciative. Steve also seems confused, though it doesn’t turn out to be about the sprinkles.

“This is longer than my dick,” he grouses at the wrapped coils of ice cream. “What am I supposed to do, deep throat it? It’s already melting.”

The couple James is going to pickpocket in a minute gives them a dirty look, but Steve just raises an eyebrow at James and smirks like the little shit that he is. James’ amusement must not make it to his face, though, because Steve’s eyes flit back and forth for a moment before he drops them to the ground.

“Sorry,” Steve says. “Inappropriate, I guess.”

“It was funny,” James says. “Sorry. I just…I don’t use my face very much. I’m not used to it. Sorry.”

Steve thinks about it for a moment - his hands do the wanna-punch-shit twitch again though James doesn’t move away this time - and then he nods.

“Okay.”

Neither of them eat much of the ice cream. They just pick at it until it’s melting ridiculously, and then they throw it in the trash.

“We’ve got to get you clothes,” Bucky says. He has another $102 dollars in his pocket now - because that couple had left the area by walking directly past him - and there’s a little shop connected to the ice cream store. James bets they at least have tourist clothing. Preferably something that won’t _swishy_ when Steve walks.

He’s partially right. They have a hoodie, at least, and that covers Steve’s ridiculously too-tight shirt. At the check-out, Steve asks for directions to the nearest gas station and asks if there’s anywhere nearby to sleep. The cashier says there’s a gas station just down the street and that there’s either an inn in Schroon Lake or a tiny motel back the other direction. Steve thanks her with a grin. James doesn’t say anything. They’ll go to the inn, probably. Slightly bigger city. They still shouldn’t spend more than a night there, though. If anyone is actively hunting them already…

He should have let Steve send someone a “don’t look for me text” before he ditched the phone. Then again, Natasha isn’t really the type to do as she’s told. He wonders, vaguely, how he knows this about her, but it’s a lot of effort to think about it, and it makes his head hurt.

Counterproductive thought process. Do not follow.

He abandons the almost-memory and leads Steve out the door.

They pass a graveyard on the way to the gas station, and it makes James turn his head again. This time, he expects the sudden stop as Steve throws on the brakes and pulls off to the side of the road. He gets out of the car without taking his eyes off the rows of old and faded headstones.

“Watcha wanna do, Bucky?” Steve asks, and James doesn’t answer. He just walks across the road and into the cemetery. The whole place is old, even though the encircling white fence is crisp and new, and he touches each of the stones that he passes. There’s a faint breeze now, and it ruffles his jacket.

Steve is trailing behind, hands in his sweatpant pockets, and he doesn’t speak again. He seems perfectly content to just weave back and forth behind. Following. James tests it for a while, walking an arbitrary looping pattern back and forth through the graveyard. Steve just follows, a half-step behind and a little to the right.

Without preamble, James lies down in the grass, positioning himself beneath a headstone like it’s his own.

“What if I was buried here?” he asks.

Steve lays down beside him and says, “Looks like there’s room for two.”

They don’t say anything else for a long time after that. They just let the bugs of the earth crawl across them as they stare up at the climbing sun.

 

The inn is painfully charming. It’s apparently run by students from a nearby college, and everyone is smiling and attentive. The girl who checks them in remembers the fake names they give and James suspects she’ll greet them every time she sees them. He grits his teeth, summons a smile, and lets Steve do the talking. Steve is better at the talking.

The end up in a room with two singles and James lays down face first on the near bed as soon as they’re through the door. It’s not the tactically preferable option - between the two beds - but that’s not a priority. Leaders put themselves in the line of fire, and he’s already decided he’s leading this mission.

Although...Hydra leaders hadn’t put themselves in the line of fire.

“Do you want me to go get food?” Steve asks. “I don’t know about you, but I need a lot more calories than I used to, and we haven’t really eaten anything today. There looked like there was a dining room downstairs or something. Or I could drive out and pick something up.”

Leaders make decisions, too.

Shit.

“Yeah,” James says, face still muffled in the pillow.

It’s a shitty attempt at faking a decision, but Steve lets it go. He says, “all right then, I’ll be back soon” and pulls back open the door. It’s almost latched shut again, when Steve puts up a sudden hand, stopping it. James hears it hit, and then he hears it push back open slightly.

“Don’t…” Steve starts. Stops. Tries again. “Don’t go anywhere.”

Then he’s gone, and the door clicks shut heavily. Bucky waits for a count of ten, and then rolls over to face the ceiling. There’s a crack. It’s hairline thin in the white paint of the ceiling, but James can see it clearly. It runs from the corner at the wall toward the center, about three feet long in total. It’s jagged and arbitrary.

He rolls over, sliding his body sideways by pushing with his metal arm, and lets himself fall off the bed, onto his stomach. He catches himself in a push-up position.

Starting position…move.

That’s not a memory, though. He knows that. That’s a modern army thing. When _he_ was at boot camp he faced men and lined his forward foot up with theirs and tried to push the other guy over before he lost his balance. He wonders why he remembers that and nothing else from that time of his life.

Lie.

He remembers missing Steve.

Counterproductive thought process. Do not follow.

He wonders if Steve missed him.

Do not…

Fuck.       Follow.

 

He does push-ups until Steve comes back. If his right arm starts to tremble, he just uses the metal one for a while. It’s both cheating and not, because the burn fades but the up and down of his face in the carpet is still soothing. The carpet is both soft and rough beneath his hand. It gives easily, but scratches irritatingly. He has a sudden image of ripping handfuls of the fuzz out with his fists, going until he reaches the liner and concrete beneath.

They’d lose their deposit. If there was a deposit. Are deposits only for places you rent? He’s never paid much attention before, and it’s a harmless series of thoughts, so he lets himself muse on it. At least, it’s a harmless series of thoughts for a moment, until he realizes he doesn’t know the policies for inns and hotels because he has never stayed in one alone, and that kind of thing is strictly Handler Business.

Counterproductive thought process. Do not follow.

Steve comes back soon after that, and he brings BBQ in paper bags and it’s somehow charming even though James learns that he can’t eat the sauce without gagging regardless of how good it tastes in his mouth. He stops trying after he vomits what he managed to choke down. There are little bits of chocolate sprinkles in the bowl, too, and Steve looks so disappointed.

The plain meat is okay, though, and Bucky wishes he has the words to tell Steve that it’s the best thing he’s eaten in decades. That a little vomiting won’t kill him. That it hurts way worse to move and breathe and think and want and lead, and he’s doing all those things anyway, so vomiting up BBQ sauce is nothing. It’s nothing. It’s nothing.

They sleep in opposite beds, facing opposite walls, and when they leave in the morning James squints at the crack in the ceiling and can’t decide if it’s his imagination or if the thing has actually gotten longer.

James does some more pickpocketing on the way out, and they leave the city with a few hundred dollars, a different car, and a half a tank of gas.

“It’s stupid to steal a car in the middle of nowhere,” James says, in the passenger seat again.

“So we’ll drive fast and change it out at the first city big enough to have a used car lot.”

“You’re going to buy a car? With what cash?” James asks the question without looking up at Steve. Instead, he looks down at the door handle. There’s a sliver of plastic sticking out, and he picks at it fervently.

“I’m not going to buy one; I figured we’d steal it or something.” Steve trails off at the end of the sentence, and James thinks - unexpectedly - that it might have been a question, without actually being a question. His guess is confirmed when Steve adds, “Is that okay? I figure that you could super-spy it or something. I don’t know. Whatever it is you do. Surely we could get a car, between the two of us, without anyone immediately realizing it’s missing.”

“Yeah,” James says. “I could kill everyone in the building and then the police will be too busy noticing the dead bodies to notice the missing car. Especially if we wipe it from the records before we go.”

There’s a long silence after that one, and James listens to the engine and the tires on the pavement and the steadiness in Steve’s breathing as he decides how to respond.

“That’s not…” Steve begins. Then he has to restart. “We’re not doing that, right?”

“What if I told you to?” James asks. He’s picking harder at the bit of plastic now. It’s too short to get a good grip on.

“Bucky,” Steve says.

“Steve,” James shoots back in response. “You said. You said you’d follow me. Till the end of the line, right? What if I say you’re going to wait in the car while I murder a building’s worth of people?”

Long silence.

“I want an answer,” James presses. He needs to hear the response.

“I’d try to talk you out of it,” Steve says. “I’d try really hard. And then, if that didn’t work I’d try to stop you.”

“Would you shoot me?” James presses.

“I don’t have a gun.”

“Answer the fucking question Rogers.” There’s some Winter Soldier in that one, even James can hear it.

“No, I wouldn’t shoot you.”

“Would you turn me in?”

“No.”

“Would you stop following me?”

“No.” Quieter than the others.

“Shit,” James says. There’s a twisting in his stomach even though he skipped breakfast in favor of watching Steve eat. Leaders make sure their followers get enough to eat.

“Yeah,” Steve agrees.

“Behold. Captain America.”

“Captain America died on a train in 1945. Everything since then has just been a ghost. Now, are we gonna have a fistfight over mass murder in a used car parking lot, or not?”

“No,” James says. “I can get a clean car without killing anyone.” He’s finally gotten the bit of plastic ripped off the door, and he notices the smudge of blood with slight alarm. He looks down at his fingers to find he’d picked hard enough to cut his finger with his own nail.

He should cut his nails.

He’s also an idiot. He should have used his left hand. Tactical failure.

 

They stop at a larger gas station, still in the middle of nowhere, and there are actual clothes on spinning plastic displays and James thinks maybe they can finally get Steve something that doesn’t swishy swishy but none of the pants are big enough. They’re all touristy yoga pants, and although James thinks that seeing Steve in a pair of yoga pants - especially one with SWEET on the ass - might be an experience in and of itself, he just rolls his eyes and turns to join Steve where he’s paying for gas at the counter.

There’s a giant stuffed wolf. It’s round and ridiculous and James reaches out to touch it like a reflex. It’s soft. He picks it up, and it squishes. He buries his face in it and breathes, even though it’s almost like suffocating.

“Bucky?” Steve asks, and James jerks his head out of the toy.

“I want it,” he says, wide-eyed and scared. Wanting things is dangerous. Wanting useless things is stupid. Selfish. Counterproductive. He blinks, and tries to smooth out his face, turning to put the animal back.

“You want it, you got it,” Steve says, and plucks it away. James could reach and rip it back, but he’s scared it will tear.

“It’s stupid,” he protests. That fear is heavy in his stomach. “We don’t have the cash for…for gag items.” He’s not sure that’s the phrase, but he’s also sure nothing he can say will stop Steve from buying the stupid thing, and he’s right. His increasingly vocal protests are met with shrugs and silence. The cashier gives them an amused look, and that finally shuts James up. Being memorable is not good.

When they get back out to the car, he throws the thing into the back with violent force and then climbs into the passenger seat. It’s less than a mile later that he reaches back and drags it up to hold in his lap. He buries his face in it again.

Stupid. Don’t have things you can lose, and then there’s nothing to take from you.

He turns his face a little so he can see Steve. Steve, who has been resting his hand on the center console - palm up - every minute of driving time, despite the fact that James hasn’t touched him since that one and only time.

“I want it, I got it,” James says. “Why?”

“Why what?” Steve asks. He’s using the calm voice again, which means he’s anything but.

“Why can I have what I want?”

Long silence, but it’s not awkward. It’s Steve thinking. James keeps his head pillowed in the wolf and watches Steve think.

“Because you deserve it,” Steve says, and James almost laughs, but it would be a sick laugh. It would make Steve disappointed. So he bites it back.

“Anything you want, Buck,” Steve continues. “It’s yours.”

Dangerous.

 

“There’s no goddamn left turn lane,” Steve spits. “Am I supposed to make a U-turn every goddamn time I want to go another direction? What kind of shitty design plan is this? Who decided this bullshit?”

It’s surreal, watching someone be angry at a thing that is not him. James doesn’t think he likes it much, but it’s a new experience, so he gives it a moment of thought, then braces himself for Steve’s violent U-turn.

They’re in Troy, MI, ready to stop for the night, and a helpful gas station attendant had said there was a place called Candlestick or something, right nearby, and they have literally been driving all day. Except now Steve can’t figure out how to get into the parking lot, because the no-left-turns and the back roads and the One Ways are a little too much for a guy that technically hasn’t driven since…since…

Oh god. James laughs, closes his eyes, and leans his head back against the headrest.

“What?” Steve snaps.

“I let you drive. I didn’t even think about it. Why can you drive? The last time you tried to drive you almost killed everyone with a tree. Forget bullets, trees are the real enemy of Captain America.”

“You remember that?” Steve asks quietly.

James opens his eyes.

“Oh. I guess so. Is it real?”

Steve’s hands tighten on the steering wheel, and that thing is going to crack if Steve gets put under any more stress.

“It’s real. Trees are the fucking antichrist.”

 

It turns out to be an extended-stay hotel, so fuck that gas station attendant, but Steve shakes his head at James’ noise of protest.

“What if we stayed for a while?” he asks. And he’s genuinely asking. James can say no. James can make that decision.

“Okay,” he says.

They get a room. This time the lady asks them if they want one bed or two. Steve says “two” before James can think about it. It feels wrong, though. He knows his memories aren’t the picture of trustworthy, but he’s pretty sure he knows that’s wrong. Still, he doesn’t contradict Steve.

 

He can’t sleep.

More likely, he could sleep if he tried, but he isn’t about to. So, instead, he’s lying in the dark and thinking. There’s no crack in this ceiling. He didn’t eat enough calories today. Steve didn’t either, although he got close. They’re losing muscle mass. This will make it easier to hide, but harder to fight. Pros. Cons. There’s a blinking red light that’s probably the fire alarm. This place comes with a kitchen, so maybe they can make food that James can eat. They can invest temporally like that. There’s no one in the room to their right, but a single person in the room to their left. Steve is asleep. The room is a little too cold for him to be sleeping comfortably, but he hadn’t complained. He hadn’t…

“Steve,” James says, and Steve jerks awake immediately.

“What is it, Bucky?” he asks. There’s sleep in his voice, but he rolls over so he can look at James.

“I want it warmer in here,” James says. He’s staring right at Steve, and he’s not sure what this is. It might be a test, or a challenge, or a proof.

“Okay,” Steve says. And he drags his ass out of the bed and over to the unit on the wall under the window. He fiddles with some buttons, and then the fan turns off. There’s a pause, about twenty seconds, and then warm air blows out. Steve stands and walks back to his bed. He doesn’t mention that the controls are closer to James’ bed. He just does it, and then he lies back down.

James lets him lie there for about ten minutes. Just long enough that his feet feel warm again and for Steve to fall back asleep.

“Steve,” he says.

“What is it, Bucky?” Steve says. He doesn’t have to roll over to look at James this time. He’s already facing that way. He just has to open his eyes.

“I want it colder in here,” James says.

“Okay,” Steve says, and then he’s back at the controls, having crossed the room again. He kneels down, instead of crouching this time, and flips the settings back to what they were. He stays there, again, and waits for the air to change.

Going back to his bed again is the fourth time he’s walked past James’ feet.

James waits another ten minutes.

“Steve.”

“What is it, Bucky?” No change in intonation. Not a single syllable has changed to indicate the slightest annoyance.

“I want it warmer in here.”

The pattern repeats.

A fourth time.

And a fifth.

Steve has stopped going back to sleep. He just lies down and looks at James and waits. So this time, James doesn’t speak. He gets up. He struggles to his feet and jerks the blankets off his own bed and drags them behind him like a trail until he’s standing beside Steve’s bed. Steve just looks up at him.

“I want to sleep in this bed,” James says.

“Okay,” Steve answers, and he makes a move to get up.

“No,” James corrects. He puts a hand on Steve’s chest and pushes gently. Steve goes where he is pushed.

James climbs into the bed, and Steve shifts to the side a little to accommodate as much as possible. They’re still pressed together. A single is barely big enough for one of them. For two of them, it’s an exercise in spatial proportions and a shedding of any conceptual personal space.

It’s perfect.

It could be 1945 again.

Bucky falls asleep immediately.

 

They don’t end up staying very long, but they do make it four more nights. James spends every one of them lying next to Steve. After that first night of cramped discomfort, they pull the mattresses off the bed and onto the floor, lining them up next to each other. James wakes up at three in the morning with his legs tangled with Steve’s and, for the slightest moment, he wants to brush his hand against the other man’s cheek. It’s only the glint of metal in the dark that stops him.

He’d forgotten.

Dangerous.

He carefully removes his feet, ignoring the still-sleeping groan of protest from Steve, and rolls over to face the opposite wall. He spends a solid sixty seconds mentally reminding his body to behave.

Yet, the next morning, James has to untangle his feet again. This time, it’s worse, because Steve wakes up as James moves and there’s a half-smile forming on both their faces before Bucky flips over again.

The next night, he twists the sheets all around his legs, to keep himself still, but he just wakes up thrashing from a nightmare and bloodies Steve’s nose. Steve says he doesn’t mind, but James chokes at the blood dripping down that lip. He goes into the hallway to keep himself from reaching out to carefully wipe it away.

 

Steve goes grocery shopping and gets bland ingredients that he turns into home meals that make James taste the 1930s for flitting split-seconds that hurt more than it would to vomit up something more complicated.

At least they’ve stopped losing weight.

Or rather, Steve has stopped losing weight. James is just...he’s just losing weight less quickly.

It’s progress.

Progress is good, right?

But Steve frowns every time James throws out half his food, and it hurts hurts hurts. He wishes he could be good for Steve. Wishes he could do what he’s supposed to do. Angry burning wrath somewhere under his skin, because he’s just not _good enough_ for Steve.

“I’m trying okay!?” he snaps, dumping the rest of the meal into the trashcan. The movement is too violent and the plate hits the edge of the trash can, cracking in half.

At least it happened over the bin, and all the shards went in. James just has to let go and he’s already cleaned up the mess he made.

He doesn’t let go. He just stares down at his hand where he’s holding half a plate, and watches Steve out of the corner of his eye where he’s stopped chewing, frozen. Fork suspended halfway to his mouth where he’s just looking at James.

“Bucky?” Steve says, through a mouthful of food.

“Bucky, Bucky, Bucky!” James shouts, each time a little louder. “Is that all you know how to say?”

“Would you rather I called you something else?” Steve asks calmly.

“No, that’s not...I’m not...just. No. That’s not it.”

“Okay.” Slow and patient, and James wants to strangle him for the first time since the helicarrier.

“How about this,” Steve begins again. “What did you mean by ‘I’m trying’ just now?”

“I’m trying,” James repeats. But then he clenches his teeth because he remembers that repeating the statement isn’t explaining it. That’s not what Steve is asking for, but he still can’t remember how to continue. How to expound, explain, exorcise whatever is eating him.

He’s sorry he brought it up now. Stupid mouth. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Worthless. Failing.

_Fix it fix it fix it._

“Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t really mean anything.” He drops the rest of the plate and it falls into the bin with a sickening scrape against the shards of itself. “I just...I don’t really have a filter anymore. They…” He takes a deep breath. “They took it. Wanted to know what I was thinking and feeling and w--wanting. Sorry.”

Steve puts down the fork, and there’s a long silence. Long enough that James thinks maybe he’s been forgiven, but of course not. No. Steve speaks anyway.

“That’s okay, Bucky. I don’t mind. You can say whatever you want to say. Can you please, explain, though? I know you’re trying.”

Shit. There’s the anger again.

Counterproductive thought process. Do not follow.

But if Steve would just stop looking at him like that for five _fucking minutes then--_

Counterproductive thought process. Do not. Do not…

“Maybe I said that because you don’t _act_ like it, Steve,” James snaps. “Maybe because every time I can’t be good enough you give me that look like I’m digging a knife into your body. Like I’ve shot you again, and you’re struggling to get up. I can’t! You can’t fucking look at me like that, like I’m just supposed to be better right off the bat. Like I I’m I I I I’m.”

It’s too much. Everything just shuts down. James stops talking and lets his arms, that he’d been gesturing with wildly, fall to his side. He just stares at Steve. They just stare at each other. Steve just sits there. Waiting.

God, fuck, he’s waiting for James to finish. To figure out what he wants to say.

He doesn’t deserve this. He’s not sure whether it’s because it’s too cruel or too kind, but either way it’s too much. He can’t.

He has to.

Leaders do what they can’t, because they have to.

Steve jumped an impossible gap full of fire. He commandeered a Special Operatives Executive, an inventor, and a plane and crossed the border into enemy territory. He did and he did and he did. Steve does.

James just...stands here.

He takes a deep breath, speaking quickly to try and get it all out before this resolve fades again.

“I’m sorry I can’t finish my goddamn dinner, and I’m sorry it makes you feel bad, but please stop looking at me like I’m killing your dog.”

More silence.

“I’m done,” James says, gesturing at Steve with both hands in a ‘go on’ motion.

“Hang on, I’m thinking first,” Steve says.

“What the fuck?” James scoffs. “Since when do you _think_ about things first?”

He’s not sure where it comes from but, after a moment, Steve’s eyes crinkle up and then he laughs. He laughs so hard. Oh gods, it sounds so good and James releases the breath he’s been holding since he showed up at Steve’s door. He half-grins and then whole-grins, and then he’s laughing, too. Not with his entire body, the way Steve is, but he’s laughing and it feels almost as good as watching Steve laugh.

“Okay,” Steve concedes. “Okay. Here’s what I’m thinking. If you don’t wanna eat or can’t eat, then whatever. Okay? It’s your call. If I’m mad or upset, it’s because I’m mad or upset that Hydra put you in this position. In this mindset. If I’m mad, then I’m mad at them. If I’m hurt, then I’m hurt by them. I’m...not anything but happy about you, Bucky. God, I’m just happy. Sorry if it doesn’t show sometimes.”

He’s...happy?

“That would be...nice to know,” James tries. Talking about his thoughts is hard when he’s not even sure where his thoughts _are_.

“I can say nice things,” Steve says. Then snorts and adds, “I am actually capable of that, you know, regardless of evidence.”

“Okay,” James smirks. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“Jerk.”

“Punk,” James shoots back. His lips remember it even before his mind does, and it feels good in his mouth.

 

They have to leave Troy. Specifically, they have to leave because someone in the lobby had recognized Steve. She hadn’t said anything, but she’d craned her neck and did a double take so they’re running out the backdoor and into the night again. James doesn’t mind. He hadn’t expected to stay there long anyway, and running just comes naturally.

As for Steve, something in the back of James’ mind calmly informs him that Steve never much liked being in the spotlight anyway. The dark is probably a nice change.

 

They’re halfway to Chicago when Bucky finds the beach ball. They have to stop at a highway gas station that’s half summer vacation families and half truckers, and Steve goes to pay for the gas while James wanders the store.

And there is a beach ball. Several deflated ones are sitting in a bin beneath it, but there’s one all blown up and on display. So customers can see what they’re getting.

They’re getting Steve’s face. On a fucking plastic beach ball. He’s wearing the cowl and his lips are painfully red while he stares into the distance heroically. Patriotically. Oh god, he looks so perfect and so fucking ridiculous at the same time.

_Let’s hear it for Captain America!_

James starts to laugh. He can’t help it. It’s uncontrollable and maybe hysterical. Violent laughter. He laughs so hard he can’t breathe and now everyone is looking at him. He has to sit down on the floor, in the middle of the aisle, and bend over to put his face in his hands. It hurts and it’s perfect and he’s never going to let Steve live this down. It’s worse than the war posters. Worse than the Smithsonian exhibit.

Steve comes over, anxious and curious, but comes to a dead halt when he sees his own face on a cheap summer beach toy.

“Aw, hell,” he mutters.

People are looking. They’re definitely recognizing Steve. His face is right there. In glorious plastic memorial.

“I want it,” James manages to choke out. “I want it!”

So Steve buys the beach ball. He’s bright red and standing with a clenched jaw as the cashier stutters and hero worships. They’re going to have to drive like hell, ditch the car, and lay low for ages now, but it’s totally worth  the trouble just to watch Steve carrying that beach ball - which James had insisted on immediately inflating - in front of his chest, arms wrapped around it.

 

Steve has a nightmare.

They’re sleeping on top of each other in the back seat of the newly-stolen car and it feels more like home than anything has so far until the moment that James realizes Steve’s breath isn’t catching because asthma but because nightmare.

“Hey!” he shouts.

He gets a bloody nose for his effort, but it’s worth it. Fair play, after all. He was owed.

“Bucky?” Steve asks.

“He’s here,” James says. Then his breath leaves in terror at the accidental admission of duality. Triality? Is that a word? Triality.

“Thank God,” Steve breathes.

It is, James thinks, a prayer rather than a blasphemy.

 

It’s raining. It’s the kind of rain that doesn’t fit any of the rhythms on the wipers, and James presses the pedal closer to the floor to try and race the droplets into the windshield.  Steve glances at the speedometer, but doesn’t say anything. He wants to, clearly, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Just spit it out,” James sighs.

“Just wondering where we’re going now, since you seem to be in such a hurry to get there. But I’m not asking questions. Just wondering.”

“That is the most unsubtle dig for information I’ve ever heard. You’re terrible at this.”

“At what?” Steve laughs, leaning his seat back so he can stretch out his legs. “At running away with my--friend?”

James wonders what the other word would have been.

 

They stop in Chicago. It’s just for a day, but James drags Steve methodically through every art museum he can find. Each time they enter a new one Steve looks amused, but jokes on him because he still ends up excited about almost everything.

“I can’t breathe,” he whispers, in a room filled with art, floor to ceiling, and James panics for a moment because Steve and breathing, but then he remembers it’s a metaphor, and then he just feels warm.

“You want something?” Steve asks, when they pass the gift shop on the way, and James rolls his eyes that this is becoming his reputation. The guy that likes cheesy toys and warm memories.

Then again. Is that such a bad reputation?

Then again. Is that even a _new_ reputation?

He just shrugs and shakes his head. It doesn’t keep Steve from asking him at every gift shop.

 

Steve is driving again, and James has his feet up on the dash. He keeps them up there as much as possible, because it’s clearly bothering Steve, and Steve is refusing to say. James scuffs his foot back and forth, smudging the vinyl and making a slight squeaking noise. That gets Steve to actually open his mouth, but then he closes it again anyway.

James laughs, low and quiet, and that makes Steve head jerk to look at him.

“Are you doing that on _purpose_ , James Buchanan Barnes?”

“Am I? Prove it,” James shoots back. Or maybe it’s Bucky, with the snappy comeback and the gratuitous self-satisfaction at Steve’s fake annoyance.

That gets him thinking.

“Hey,” he begins. “Do you think it’s possible to be more than one person, but also the same?” It’s not exactly what he means, but words are hard and Steve is smart. He’ll get it.

“Sure, yeah,” Steve says. His tone hasn’t changed, but his posture has. Obviously, this is going to be a Conversation, and James tries not to let himself tense in fear. Tries to continue breathing like he had been. Tries to dismiss the thoughts of “danger” and “threat” because Counterproductive and Do Not Follow.

“I mean,” Steve continues. “Look at me. I’ve never been only Captain America, but once he showed up, he was always here. At the same time. Me, and not me. I wouldn’t be either without the other.”

James scoffs.

“Comment, from the peanut gallery?” Steve asks.

“Yeah, punk. I’m calling bullshit. I mean, I get what you’re saying about the costume and the spotlight, _maybe_. But the rest of it was all you. You were always you. It just comes in bigger packaging now. That serum didn’t change who you are.”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Steve tries again. “I’m not saying it changed me, but it added something new. They made Captain America. Dr. Erskine. Howard Stark. I brought my own mixture to the table, but they attached something new. Something else. Something foreign.”

James is silent for a long while after that. He can suddenly remember just after being rescued along with the rest of the 107th.

_Let’s hear it for Captain America!_

Huh. So that’s where that sound bite of memory is from.

That explains the anger that has always gone along with it. That mind-numbing rage of helplessness. His Steve and Not His Steve standing there under the adoration of a battalion. Of a nation. Of a century.

A mouthy boy in a back alley had once asked Bucky, “Are you jealous?”

Wrong question. He’s not jealous. He was never jealous. He’s in mourning for the skinny boy he lost. His life was a funeral long before he was turned into a ghost.

“Okay,” he rasps. “Okay, I think I see your point. You’re right. Captain America was all them, but Steve Rogers was all you. They can’t claim credit for the hero you became any more than you can claim credit for growing three sizes overnight. Credit where credit is due.”

“Well, the muscles aren’t exactly hurting my hero image,” Steve grins.

“Fine. They can have one percent of the credit. One.”

“Very generous,” Steve nods sagely.

“I know. I’ve been called magnanimous by so many.”

“You’re a little shit,” Steve laughs.

“Takes one to know one,” Bucky mutters back.

 

There is a giant-ass blue whale sitting in a tiny lake in the Middle of Nowhere Oklahoma. Steve’s driving again, and James shoves his arm to make him pull over.

“I wanna see!” he declares, so of course Steve stops.

It’s bright and wooden and apparently welcoming to visitors. Steve and James are able to walk right inside. It even has two stories, although it’s a little cramped for James when he manages to make it up there. Clearly, it was designed for children. James shuffles around on his hands and knees in the half-dark and sticks his head back down the hole.

“Let’s get lunch and make a picnic of it!” he demands.

“Okay,” says Steve.

They drive into a nearby town to get food, but James sees a sign for a dairy and shoves Steve’s arm again, hard enough that they almost swerve into another lane.

“Oh, fuck yeah,” Steve breaths, as soon as he sees what got James so excited. Milk is on the list with bananas. One of the things that’s different in a way that no one seems to anticipate or explain. Different in a dissociative way. The first time James had had milk in the new century, he’d spat it out and spun into a flashback. Because clearly something was wrong with his senses. With his perception. With his memory.

All that panic for nothing. It turns out that these days, they cook milk within an inch of its life, and then sell it like that’s normal. Except, of course, at the few places you can get it right from the source.

James is completely prepared to shove open any number of doors and wade around in cow shit until he can find someone to convince to let him have fresh milk, but it turns out to be way easier than that. The place has a little store, selling not only unpasteurized milk but cheese, too. He grabs a gallon in one hand and five or six baggies of cheese curds with the other.

“Pay the nice lady, Steve,” James demands. Steve is laughing at him, but James doesn’t give a shit. It actually feels kind of nice.

Which is how they end up back at the blue whale eating bags of cheese curds and sharing milk straight out of a gallon bottle.

“Not gonna shit for days,” Steve grumbles, but neither of them care. It’s warm out, and the milk is cold and tastes like home. James is lying on the edge of the dock with his pants rolled up and his feet in the water up to his knees. When he turns his head a little to the side he can stare straight into one of the whale’s eyes.

“Hey,” he says, gesturing at the structure. “Why do you think this thing is here?”

“Fuck if I know,” Steve shrugs. He’s silent for a while, as James and the whale have a brief staring contest, but then he scoots closer so he’s sitting with crossed legs right at James’ head. He bends down, putting his face in James’ line of sight.

“What?” James asks.

“You doing okay?” Steve asks.

“God, fuck off,” James sighs, heavily but without anger.

“Okay, okay, just checking. So far we’ve had a grand total of one semi-successful conversation about this whole thing. And don’t get me wrong,” he rushes to continue, before James can make a comment of his own. “I’m not saying I’m unsatisfied with the arrangement. I get it. You go wherever you want, and I’ll follow. I just want you to make sure you know that you can…”

“Talk to you? Come on Steve. We’re both shit at talking. Let me figure this out in my own way. Let me just figure out…”

“What you want?” Steve finishes. He says it with a half-painful twisted smile.

“Yeah,” James says. And oh god he’s suddenly got an idea. It comes out of left field, but it comes in strong. James wants something, and he’s spent too many recent weeks just taking what he wants to resist now.

He does a half sit up and brushes his lips against Steve’s.

The sounds of the lake are quiet and overwhelming.

“I know what I want,” James whispers. And for once, that’s absolutely true.

 

Not that it’s easy. It’s never fucking easy. Everything is two steps forward eight steps back. Round and round and round. After the day at the lake, James has a whole day where he can’t stand to be touched. That comes out of left field, too, but it’s much less welcome than the desire for a kiss.

It starts in the morning, after James has showered and has a towel wrapped around his waist. He catches sight of himself in the mirror and - instead of his eyes automatically bouncing away like they usually do - he actually looks. He looks at the scar tissue and the twisted metal and flesh. Bolts. Through his own skin and bone, like a machine but without a machine’s perfection.

His first indication that he’s been clutching the sink in front of him is when the porcelain shatters in his left hand.

“What’s wrong? Bucky?” Steve asks, rushing into the tiny bathroom. His arm brushes James’ right one, and James shrinks back violently. Irrationally. He moves quickly and hectically enough that he misses his footing and the edge of the tub behind him throws him off balance. One foot slips on the wet floor - he’s still trying to move away from Steve - and he falls over backwards into the tub. He grabs for the shower curtain on instinct, but all it does is come down with him.

“Don’t!” he shrieks, when Steve steps forward to try and help. “Stop! I want you to stop!”

Steve stops; James’ want hanging there as a lifeline. As a shield.

James’ chest is heaving and both his hands are out in front of him. The towel is out of place and twisted around his legs, slowly soaking through from the water left draining in the tub. James squints past his hands, looking at Steve standing helplessly in the doorway, watching James. James’ hands are shaking. He couldn’t make a shot with them like this. Not the kind of shot he’s usually asked to make, at least.

“I want you to go,” James says.

Steve licks his lips once and takes a step back.

“Whatever you want, Buck,” he says. And his voice cracks on the words.

James can’t put the shower curtain back up. The rod had ripped completely out of the wall when he’d fallen. He just sort of props it up in the tub and prepares to leave in the dead of the coming night.

 

Steve doesn’t really “go” so much as “hang around outside by the car until James says he can come back inside.” But it’s the letter of the law, and what James meant anyway. It’s what he meant underneath the panic. He’s sure.

The fear of being touched fades, along with the fear of Steve, and James chalks it up to one more pothole on the road to wherever the hell he’s going. His whole life is potholes anyway. What’s the difference of one more?

He thinks that Steve might be thinking about the incident differently, but James can’t afford to dwell on that. Counterproductive. Do not follow. Blah, blah, blah.

He does try to make it up to Steve, though. As soon as he can stand the touch of human flesh again he makes of show of touching Steve a lot. Unnecessarily. Reverently. He brushes against him in the bathroom, the kitchen, the car. He rubs the hem of Steve’s shirt between his fingers. He crowds up close behind him when they’re waiting for the elevator. He reaches out to hold his hand while they’re driving.

“What gives, Bucky?” Steve finally asks. “Why the touching?”

James jerks his hand back like he’s been burned. It takes a moment longer than it should, when Steve tenses his muscles at the sudden movement and their fingers get tangled, but James gets free eventually.

“Sorry,” he says.

“Oh god,” Steve breathes. “No, it’s fine. Shit. I didn’t mean stop or that it wasn’t okay. I just wanted to make sure you wanted to. You don’t have to make anything up to me. It’s fine. It’s all fine.”

“Fuck you,” James spits. “Just let me be. Isn’t that the fucking point of this? Just let me do what I want.”

“Sorry,” Steve apologizes again. He’s pale, like he’s going to be sick. “God, sorry Buck. I wasn’t meaning to question you.”

“The whole ‘do what you want’ thing was your idea anyway,” James sulks.

“I know. I’m sorry,” Steve says again. “I’m sorry.”

 

It’s not always bad, though. Not by a long shot. It’s usually good. As good as it can get for them, anyway. The entire Midwest is flat and horrifyingly city-less. James can see forever, and it is the _worst_ , but Steve distracts him by telling stories. Sometimes it’s stuff that James mostly remembers. Sometimes it’s stuff that happened between Bucky falling and coming back to himself on the helicarrier. Sometimes it’s fiction or faerie tales. James likes the one about the prince that’s turned into a fox. It makes sense to have to cut parts of yourself off, in order to earn back your old self.

“They took me out of the freezer for that one,” he says, when Steve tells him about the Battle of New York. “I don’t know what they thought I’d do, but I was ready.”

“Fuck. Really?” Steve says.

“Yeah. Might have been a good thing, too. They showed me some footage, in preparation, and you were on it. I was really confused by you. I remember asking a tech what year it was. That was strange...for me. I didn’t ask many questions by then.”

“When did you stop?” Steve asks. Then clarifies, “You said, ‘by then.’ So you used to ask questions, but then you stopped?”

“Sure, yeah,” James shrugs. He’s looking at Steve now, rather than out the window. “I used to talk and sleep and all that shit. I used to be pretty autonomous. They let me function on my own, as long as that function stayed within their parameters. Especially in Russia. God, they let me have way too much freedom in Russia. They didn’t let me have my own name, but they let me have another one. I wonder if they know how close I got to coming back to myself sometimes.”

Steve is silent, his jaw clenched. James leans down to kiss his fingers in soothing, and then continues more gently.

“Maybe they did know, though. Maybe they knew exactly how to make sure I was happy enough to purposefully ignore my past. Made me more afraid of what could be than what was.”

“When did it change, then? When did they...”

“Strip my humanity?”

“I guess.”

“Pierce,” James says.

Steve doesn’t ask any more questions after that.

 

James likes kissing Steve. Sometimes it’s good when Steve is kissing back, but mostly James likes to be the one doing it. He likes to get in quick pecks to the back of Steve’s neck when he’s cooking. He likes to kiss Steve’s fingers as they’re falling asleep. He likes to kiss his stomach to wake him up.

Kiss, kiss, kiss. Little quick pecks that are just enough to taste his skin. Maybe to nip at it.

“You’re killing me, Buck,” Steve groans, when he wakes up to James’ lips on his hip.

James laughs into the thin skin.

 

“Do you mind?” James asks, one day when he’s letting Steve be a more active participant. They’re tangled up in the back of their current car. Steve says the modern phrase is “making out.” James just calls it “doing what I want.”

“Do I mind?” Steve laughs. He bucks his hips a little and says, “You tell me.”

James bites Steve’s lip in retaliation for that one, but then explains, “No, do you mind doing this when I’m not quite me. When I’m James, rather than Bucky.”

Steve stills a little and says, “Is that what you call yourself?”

“For now. Now, answer the question.”

“I don’t mind. I mean, I still mourn that part of you, sure. But I’m not stupid or petty enough to let it rob me of what I can have.” He brushes his hand under James’ shirt, along his ribs. “I’m not sorry I get this part of you. Any part of you is enough for me.”

James lets his head fall onto Steve’s chest and he blows a heavy hot breath into the fabric there. He closes his eyes slowly and whispers, “Fuck,” with a fervor that belies the tone’s softness.

 

The Grand Canyon is both the best and the worst moment of the entire trip. They were supposed to go here together - Bucky and Steve. They promised. Instead, it’s just Steve and James. It makes James want to go to his knees and beg for forgiveness.

Yet at the same time, they gaze out at the beauty before them, Steve’s arm draped across James’ shoulder, and stand in a flawless moment of silent awe.

 

They make the west coast at 4:11am PST. There are a few people already out and jogging because it’s fucking California. Still, it’s quiet and isolated enough that James can get all the way down to the edge of the water without getting within 100 yards of another person.

Besides Steve, of course. Steve follows him as they abandon the car, jump the barrier, and wade through the soft and scratchy sand. It gets in James’ shoes and makes him miss his boots, so he takes a moment to kick them off his feet. His socks follow, because why stop once you’ve started? He continues his trek, down to the water, and is mildly amused to hear Steve kicking off his own shoes. He isn’t wearing any socks, the punk, so it takes him less time.

Still, they reach the water eventually, and it’s not too cold, given the warming summer. That’s good, because Steve has an issue with cold water.

That brings James up short, because so far all his memories of things that Steve cannot do have been from another lifetime. Another past. Another memory. It’s jarring, to suddenly have hit on the right time. The right fear. Something that hasn’t been fixed.

“Well, shit,” he sighs.

“What?” Steve says, predictably.

“Nothing.”

He begins to stride out, long step by long step, water sloshing at his ankles, his thighs, his waist. He can taste the salt in the air and on his face, and the water is dark and the ground rough beneath his feet.

Steve follows.

James walks out until the water is at his chest and he has to widen his stance to stay upright. Until he can’t see his feet beneath him in the moonlight or even his hands where they float underwater.

He can still see Steve, though. Two feet behind and silent. Awaiting orders.

“Will you follow me out there?” James asks, wrenching one hand out of the water to gesture out at the ocean’s horizon. “How long could we last? How far would our bodies get us? Yours would get you farther than mine.”

“Mine would get me exactly as far as yours would.”

“Don’t be stupid. They did something to me, but it’s just a knock off of yours. My body’s not the real deal.”

“No, mine would get me exactly as far as yours. I’m following you, remember?”

It makes James so afraid that he becomes angry. Angry at this unmalicious threat of suicide. That Steve would drown, when he could save himself.

It reminds James, suddenly, of why he knows that Steve is afraid of cold water.

“What kind of soldier runs ahead of his leader?” Steve continues calmly.

“One who does as he’s told!” Bucky screams.

“Not if he’s leaving his commander behind,” Steve states. He’s unperturbed by James’ sudden outburst. Violent tone. Desperate words. He doesn’t move any more than the surging water makes him. Shifting to keep his balance.

“Bullshit,” James spits. “If I swim out there and drown, you’ll swim your ass right back here. Or, better yet, you’ll swim the fuck on. All the way out to some island, where you can live the rest of your goddamn life in peace.”

“You don’t get to keep telling me what to do after you’re dead,” Steve snaps. So at least James is getting a reaction out of him now.

This is stupid. They’re arguing about drowning in the Pacific, miles off shore. It’s irrelevant and dumb and pointless and Counterproductive, but Bucky can’t help the fact that it’s suddenly overwhelmingly important to him.

“I want you to keep going!” he screams. The air tastes like salt. Nothing grows here.

“The wanting thing only lasts until the moment you’re dead,” Steve spits back. “Then you don’t want anything, and _I_ get to do whatever the fuck I want. And if that means drowning in the waters of the Atlantic, then that’s what I’ll do.”

Wrong ocean.

James purses his lips against the shown hand, and stares out at the dark sea.

“That’s not the way this works,” he says calmly. Calm, again. In control, again. “I own you. You’re mine.”

“Bucky.”

“No. Shut up and listen. I paid for you. With my suffering. It was my way to the 21st century and the way for me to buy your not being alone here, alive without me. Again. I got to stay with you, and the price for that was almost a century of torture, and I have no desire to make a return. But it means you’ve been purchased. Bought with a price. Redeemed at great value.”

He turns in the water, reaching out to cup Steve’s face and draw him closer. He lets the water carry part of the weight of his body, so he can levy himself up, wrapping his legs around Steve’s waist. It puts his face higher than Steve’s. For the first time in decades, Steve has to look up at Bucky, getting salt water dripped on his face from James’ hair.

From Bucky’s hair.

Floating in the ocean, wrapped up in the fading moonlight, James “Bucky” Barnes experiences the sudden clarity of cohesion.

“Your Bucky,” he breaths. “I’m your Bucky. But guess what, Captain America? You’re my Steve. So take that ridiculous bullshit you’re spitting and shove it back up your ass where it belongs. I want you to live. That’s what I want. You don’t get a goddamn say.”

Gentle kisses.

“It doesn’t just work like that, Bucky.”

Wet lips.

“Yes, it does.”

They taste like salt water.

“No, it--”

“You won’t follow me into death, and I won’t follow you into death. Like, the opposite of mutually assured destruction. Anti-suicide pacts. Okay?”

“Bucky…”

“Say, ‘yes, sir,’ Steve.”

So many kisses. Little gentle kisses, all over Steve’s face.

Tears taste like salt water, too.

“Yes, sir.”

An answer as soft and gentle as Bucky’s kisses.

Bucky always was the only person Steve would ever lose a fight to.

“All right then,” Bucky says, leaning back in the water. “I’m done.”

He’s floating now, suspended in the water. He keeps his legs locked tight around Steve’s waist, though. It anchors him in place as the ocean laps at his face. He spreads his arms out wide, like a cross.

“Done?” Steve echoes in confusion. “Done with what?”

“Leading,” Bucky shrugs. “I did what I needed to do. Your turn again, Captain. Your call. I’ll be right behind you. Whatever you want to do.”

“Well,” Steve says slowly. “There are some people I should probably call. You know, so they don’t think I’m fucking dead. Or taken hostage.”

“With what phone?” Bucky asks. He can see a few stars up above him. You used to be able to see at least a few stars in Brooklyn. Probably not now. He should check on that.

“With the one you have hidden in your bag, jerk. Just put the battery back in.”

Bucky half-sits up to look Steve in the eye.

“You know about that?”

“Duh. You’re not as sneaky as you think you are.”

 

They end up calling Sam. Steve originally wanted to call Natasha, but Bucky makes a noise of discomfort.

“What?” Steve asks.

“I think I knew her. Once. A lifetime ago. Maybe. I haven’t figured it out yet. I don’t know what I’d say to her.”

“Oh,” Steve says. “Right. You said ‘Russia,’ didn’t you?”

So they call Sam.

“Steve?” Sam cries out, when he understands who he’s talking to. “Man, what the hell is going on? You don’t show up for our run, and then that scary redhead shows up asking questions about you? And then you’re on the news in fucking Michigan?”

“Yeah, about that,” Steve says slowly. “I, um, had some errands to run. Some stuff to pick up.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sam presses. “You had to _pick up_ some stuff, so you dropped of the face of the map and drove to Michigan?”

“Me,” Bucky interrupts. “He had to pick up me. Or...something like that. I don’t know. Just...it’s my fault.”

“And who are you?” Sam says loudly.

“I’m Bucky.”

Long pause.

“As in...Barnes?”

“Yes?” Bucky says, but he doesn’t like the way it’s almost a question, so he clears his throat and tries again.

“Yes. I am Bucky Barnes."

**Author's Note:**

> As always, you can find me on my [tumblr](http://polyamoryavengers.tumblr.com/) for Marvel headcanons and one-shots.


End file.
